HISD: Social media to blame for Lamar High School ‘riot’

Online cell phone videos, pictures and Twitter posts document what some are calling a riot at Houston’s Lamar High School last week, with images of students fighting, spilling out of classrooms, running through the campus, many of them screaming and pushing each other.

This week, seven students were suspended for the April 5 disruption at the River Oaks-area campus, including three who will be given Class C misdemeanors for disrupting class, said Houston Independent School District spokesman Jason Spencer.

Last Thursday, tweets poured out such as, “We had a riot that lasted a good Hour [sic]. Fights=6, paper ball fight…lol its all on the News [sic]. Only @ Lamar High School.”

Some tweets portrayed the disruption as much more extreme.

|If you were @ Lamar High School today you would’ve been on the verge of having SWAT shooting rubber bullets IF the riot lasted any longer.|

What’s certain is that social media exploded during and after the event with eyewitness accounts as students pulled out their cell phones. Although HISD prohibits the use of cell phones during class, the district allows students to use their phones during the changes of classes and at lunch. By that afternoon, ”Lamar High School” was trending on Twitter and by Friday, someone made a Facebook page about the incident.

“All the student could tell that it wasn’t a fight the administrators could control,” said senior Amel Sengal. ”It was complete ridiculousness.”

Spencer said HISD believes that students organized a prank through social media in which they sent out tweets about a riot happening on campus. Earlier in the day, just before noon, he said a fight had broken out, which was captured on a cell phone. During a change of classes around 12:30 p.m., students ran through the halls throwing paper at classmates and running from one side of campus to the other, he said.

The second fight, also captured on a cell phone, occurred during the “prank,” he said.

“All of this created a lot of disorder and disruption on campus that afternoon,” Spencer said. “Personally, I don’t think what happens constitutes a riot…It was all unacceptable behavior.”

He said the seven students who were punished were found to have instigated the incident using social media. He said the administration tracked them down through interviews with students, watching security tapes and reviewing Twitter posts, particularly those “creating a buzz” about it beforehand.

“I don’t think there is evidence that the students who planned it also planned for the fight to happen, but it created an atmosphere that allowed that to happen,” Spencer said.

He said cell phone use wasn’t the issue: “What they were saying in the tweets was the problem.”

Students who witnessed the incident said fights aren’t unusual at their high school, but what happened that day was. “The assistant principal blew his whistle and it created a whole mob of people running,” Sengal said. “I could feel the ground shaking…People were running to it from all floors of the building.”

A second fight broke out in the courtyard, she said.

She said it was frustrating that the administration made it seem like students were intentionally causing commotion as part of a prank.

“I felt concerned for my safety,” said senior Holly Howard, who saw the crowds running through the halls. She dismissed the administration’s explanation of a ”paper-throwing prank” as untrue.

“They are using that was a scapegoat,” she said.

Here are two cell phone videos showing the chaos on April 5 at Lamar High School: